Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

“Why would you do that?” I asked suspiciously.

The grin came back full force. “Because it’ll make Jamaal shit bricks.” He rubbed the glyph on his forearm. “I’m of Loki’s line, so making trouble is in my blood. And Jamaal is the easiest target ever.”

I wasn’t much of an expert on mythology, but if memory served, Loki was a Norse trickster-god. But since I didn’t buy this whole descended-from-the-gods bullshit, I didn’t buy Jack’s explanation, either. Still, letting him drive me home sounded like an excellent idea.

“Real nice of you to pick on someone whose best friend just died,” I said, deciding that even if he was letting me go, I didn’t much like him.

“Isn’t it, though?” he responded, unperturbed.

“And you’re not worried about what Anderson will do when he finds out?” Maggie had seemed awfully sympathetic to me, but she had categorically refused to defy Anderson’s orders.

“Descendant of Loki, remember? We tend not to trouble ourselves about consequences. If I didn’t piss Anderson off at least once a week, I’d feel like a disgrace to my divine ancestor.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. Even crazier than the rest of the crazies here, that is.

He straightened up and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Hey, no skin off my teeth if you’d rather stay locked up down here. Make yourself comfortable. Anderson’s going to come talk to you in the morning, and I’m sure that’ll be just loads of fun.”

I felt myself pale on cue, a hard knot of fear twisting in my gut.

“I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” I told Jack hurriedly, hoping I didn’t look as scared as I felt. I’d never thought of myself as a shrinking violet, but I’d been scared so many times over the last few hours I might have to reassess my own toughness.

Jack nodded briskly. “I thought you’d come to see it my way.” He reached behind him to pick something up from the floor. He held it out to me, and I saw that it was my pocketbook.

At least, it had been a pocketbook once upon a time. The tan leather was soaked through, turning it almost chocolate brown, there was a slash all the way across the front, and one of the straps was gone. I took a moment to mourn the loss—I love my bags, and this one had been my favorite—then took the ruined pocketbook from Jack.

“I couldn’t get your car key out of the ignition,” he told me, “but I got the rest of the keys off the ring and put them in the inside zipper compartment.”

Numbly, I checked the pocket in question and was glad to see that my apartment keys had survived the crash. I was tempted to check the rest of the contents of the purse, but decided that might be rude, implying that Jack might have taken something. I didn’t know why he was helping me—if that was really what he was doing—but if he was going to take me home, I didn’t want to do anything to risk pissing him off.

“Ready to go?” he asked, stepping away from the door.

Way more than ready, I hurried out of the cell and into the hallway beyond.

Jack drove me home in a surprisingly bland black BMW. I’d have figured him for the red sports car kind of guy, but maybe he didn’t like to be predictable. Or maybe he was “borrowing” someone else’s car. I wouldn’t have put it past him.

The clock on the dashboard informed me it was four A.M. I fought a yawn. God, I was tired! My body felt ridiculously good, considering the abuse it had taken, but if I really was now possessed of supernatural healing ability—a fact that I was going to have trouble continuing to deny—I must have burned extra energy to do it. I could hardly hold my head up.

The streets of Arlington were deserted at that time of night, and Jack made good time into Bethesda. He seemed to consider the speed limit merely a suggestion. Same with red lights and stop signs. If I weren’t exhausted down to my bones, I might have been alarmed.

The good news was that we didn’t get stopped by cops, and that Jack was blessedly quiet for the whole ride. I wasn’t up to either an encounter with the police or another conversation that would make my head hurt. The bad news was that Jack never bothered to ask me where I lived. He drove straight to my apartment building, barely even looking at street signs.

The obvious conclusion was that even if he hadn’t taken anything from my pocketbook, he’d obviously looked in it. My driver’s license would conveniently provide my address, which made the fact that he was willing to let me go a little less surprising. As long as he knew where I lived, he—and his crazy friends—could get to me. The smirk he gave me as I dragged myself out of the car made me wish I had the energy—and the guts—to smack him.

“Be seeing you around,” he said with a wave just before I slammed my door closed. The smile and the twinkle in his eye failed to hide the warning behind the words.

Moments later, I was safe inside my own home and could have wept in relief. My body still cried out for sleep, but I didn’t have time for it. I had no illusions that the folks at Nutso Central were going to leave me alone, and that meant I had some preparations to make.

First, I had to get out of the apartment, much though it pained me to admit it. The feeling of safety that enveloped me when I stepped in the door was nothing but an illusion when Jack knew where I lived. He might or might not have been releasing me behind Anderson’s back, but either way, I knew he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. I also knew he wasn’t going to keep my address a secret.

I went into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee—I was never going to stay awake otherwise—while I tried to figure out where to go. The light on my answering machine was blinking, and I hit it by reflex.

“Hey there, Nikki,” said Steph’s perky voice. “You know I hate it when you keep me in suspense. How’d it go tonight?”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. The Date from Hell seemed like it had happened in another lifetime. And any date Steph arranged for me came with a mandatory debriefing afterward, one that I could have done without in the best of times. In my current state of mind, I couldn’t bear to face it. The answering machine beeped, then moved on to the next message. Steph again. What a surprise.

“It’s midnight, and you haven’t called me back yet,” she scolded. “I promise to forgive you, but only if you’re not calling because you’re in the middle of some hot and heavy sex.”

I snorted, both at the ridiculousness of the idea of me having hot and heavy sex with Jim, and at the ridiculousness of my real reason for not having called.

“I wish,” I muttered.

I briefly considered going to stay with Steph for a while, just until I got things sorted out. Unlike me, she was willing to dip into her trust fund, and her house was more than big enough for the two of us. Not that my condo was a humble shack. My adoptive parents, the Glasses, had set up a trust fund for me at the same time they’d set up Steph’s. When I’d refused to touch it, they’d bought this condo and offered to rent it to me for a ridiculously small sum. I should have turned it down, but I’d fallen in love with the place. I assuaged my guilty conscience by paying them three times what they asked, although they didn’t need the money.

Mr. Glass had built a start-up company into a multinational corporation when he was young, and he had money to burn. I know it bothers him that I won’t use the trust fund—he’d grown up poor and always dreamed of giving his children a better life. But as much as I loved my adoptive family, I can’t help feeling like an interloper who doesn’t deserve a share of their wealth.

Frowning fiercely as I packed a small roll-aboard bag, I decided that although Steph had plenty of room, I didn’t dare stay at her place. It wouldn’t be hard for Anderson and crew to find her connection to me and to track me there. I didn’t want to put her in danger. Which meant I couldn’t stay at the Glasses’ house, either, even though they were away on a round the world cruise and I’d have had the place to myself. That left a hotel.